5 Must-Have Collateral Pieces in Your New Member Kits

We all know first impressions mean a lot!

Based on that premise, what are you doing with your new member kit, which will be the first impression your new member gets of your organization?

Is it professional?  Is it delivered in a timely fashion?

You should be able to answer yes to those two questions above and here are my list of 5 must-have collaterals in your new kit 1) Welcome Letter; 2) Membership Card 3) Decal or plaque; 4) Features of Membership; and 5) List of Upcoming Events.

Welcome Letter - this should come from your CEO.  Keep it short and sweet, thank them for joining, tell them what the chambers been working on, and tee-up what else is in the new member kit.

Membership Card - ideally this is attached to the letter (hint it will allow you to do a mail merge) and the end product is professional.  Make sure their member number is on the card and you instruct them to put it in their wallet.

Decal or Plaque - I think you know this one!  Ask them to prominently place their membership decal or plaque where others in the community can see it - the businesses front window or by the cash register.

Features of Membership - explain the features of membership and the benefit they will get from those features (i.e., educational program is the feature and the knowledge gained from that educational program is the benefit).

List of Upcoming Events - create a list of programs that are scheduled for the next quarter.  Put it in a form that they can post to a bulletin board or maybe put on their refrigerator that will be a constant reminder of your organizations upcoming events.

Get started on upgrading your new member kit today!

Retention or Recruitment: Which Is More Important?

Depends on who you ask!

From my prospective they're both equally important.  While it's imperative to take care of your current members you must continue to build and keep your eye on the future.

Your chamber will always have attrition (the amount of your members who drop their membership each year).

The key is keeping it to a minimum with great customer service and great programming and gaining more new members than the amount of members you lose each year through attrition.

The better question is whether you have a strategy in place for both of these important aspects of your membership activities.  Remember, we are membership organizations so without them we wouldn't be in business.

Retention plan

In addition to your initial new member kit, each chamber should have their own membership retention plan in place.  I’m not going to list everything you should do, or what may or may not work for you, but here’s a list of things a number of chambers have done with success:

• 90 day welcome call;
• Six month "check-in" email; and
• Three months prior to due date you reach out again and thank them for their membership.

Recruitment plan

Just as you have a retention plan you should also have a recruitment plan.  Again, what works for you may not work for all chambers, but you need to have a plan and stick with it.

• A good list;
• Repetition in "the ask;" and
• Follow-up.

Retention and recruitment, you need to be doing both!

A great resource for measuring your activities and results vs what others are doing around the country can be found in their annual Marketing General Inc. Membership survey.

You can get it HERE.

Conduct More Effective Meetings by Following These 4 Tips

There have been many articles written on the subject manner and my 4 tips are based on conducting hundreds of meetings over the past 20 years.

While I'm sure you have your favorite tips for conducting a successful meeting, I suggest following these 4 tips will get you started in the right direction that you can tweak as you see fit for your specific organization.

1.    Room set-up

2.    Agenda with appropriate background materials

3.    Start on time and stick to the agenda

4.    Robert’s Rules of Order

Room Set-up

Conference room style with name tents in front of all members is a great way to set-up your room.  The names should be on both sides of the name tent so it won’t matter what side of the table you’re on you’ll be able to see the persons name.

Agenda

Once you’ve decided on an agenda with your board chair, get it out to the board in advance of the meeting.  Keep it short and simple.

And always use the consent agenda to your advantage.

Start on Time and stick to the agenda

Do you create an annotated agenda for you and the board chair?  If not, I suggest you do and it should have times on every item.

This will go a long way of keeping your meeting on schedule and productive.  You don’t want any one board member to highjack the meeting with a subject matter that is not on the official agenda.

For a sample board agenda's and other materials from Bob Harris, Institute faculty member,  go HERE.  Or, go HERE for a great website on board agenda templates.

Robert’s Rules of Order (RRO)

If you stick to the process laid out in RRO I suggest you will find your meetings will run smoothly and on time.  It keeps an orderly fashion to your meeting.  And it’s very simple, motion to approve, do I have a second, discussion, all in favor, all appose?  That’s it!

One final thought, keep your meetings to two hours or less.  You need to be respectful to your volunteers and that they are spending time away from their businesses or organizations.  Think of how you like meetings to run when you’re on someone else’s board.

Good luck in conducting your next great meeting!

4 Ways for Local Chambers to Engage in Advocacy

There are many ways to engage in the advocacy arena.

It's important that you make the distinction between legislative activity and political activity.

The following 4 things are key in having a full on government affairs program for your chamber.

The first two fall under the legislative activity category and the last two are clearly political activities.

1.    Lobbying

2.    Grassroots

3.    PAC's

4.    Endorsements

Lobbying

I've talked about this before HERE and in a nutshell this is where you and your members are having direct contact with your legislative leaders. Preferrably a one-on-one meeting with the member or his or her staff.

Grassroots

This is where you may engage your entire membership in a letter writing campaign or a phone call campaign.  Don’t forget the letter-to-the-editor grassroots tactic.  It can be very productive.

PAC's

This is a separate entity and designated fund that your members can contribute personal money to, which in turn, allows you to can make direct contributions to candidates.

Endorsements

This is where you go on record and endorse a specific candidate for elected office.  While you may not make everybody happy when you make endorsements it's an effective tool in your government affairs toolbox.  It's important that you use a clear set of criteria to measure candidates so you can decide on endorsing pro-business candidates or incumbents in an open and transparent way.

Remember, the key to making the above four activities successful is having a strong government affairs committee that can vet the above and make recommendations to your full chamber board for consideration and action.

Good luck!

3 Tips for Creating an Online Content Plan

If you're like most chamber's you may have had a few sleepiness nights thinking about creating your chamber’s online content plan.

Not a problem!

I suggest if you focus on the following 3 tips you'll be well on your way to creating great content for your members and community.

1.    Strategy

2.    Discipline

3.    Adaptability

Strategy

Ask.  Listen.  Plan.  Don't jump without asking your members what they want, listen to their comments and plan accordingly.

Discipline

Stick to your strategy and don't get caught up in chasing the next big gadget or new platform.  Think members.  You don't want them having to learn a new way of communicating with you (platform) since most people don't like change.

Adaptability

It's imperative that you continue to review your strategy and be able to change as needed.  Let's face it, in the online space it seems like things are changing every other week or month.  Don't chase the beast!

Now once you've thought about the above 3 tips it's now time to spend the next 6-12 months in executing your plan and then take a step back and measure your efforts.

There are many measuring tools out there but many chambers are using Google Analytics and for good reason.

It's free and a very robust tool that will tell you much about your efforts over a period of time you choose to measure.  The new dashboard is very user friendly and you can find more info on the program at this BLOG.

The only mistake you can make in creating an online content plan is to do nothing.

Get started today in creating great content for your members!

Likability and Leadership

I remember reading Tim Sanders' book The Likability Factor many years ago and was reminded of it when I recently attended an educational session led by Bill Graham on The Power of Likability Leadership.

Bill talks about "open face" and how the simple fact of raising the eyebrows allows those people you're communicating with into your circle.

The other points he makes is that "communicating is not an activity but a result."  He went on to say "it's all about what I leave in your head."

Tim talks about how people want to do business with people they like.  In my opinion, that's no different than what Bill's talking about with his "open face" communication concept.

At the end of the day, we should make sure we're imploring both in our communications with members and potential members.

I agree with Bill when he suggests practicing the "open face" technique, you instantly become likable and people will react to what you're saying.

That's an effective two-punch communication strategy.

For more information on Tim Sanders go HERE and for more information on Bill Graham go HERE.

Being likable is being a winner!

3 Tips for Creating a Stronger Organizational Culture

Culture eats strategy for lunch!  I forgot where I heard that but think about it.

I believe it!  Do you?

If we create the right culture in our organizations, the sky is the limit as to what you can do for your members.

Now more than ever since we have up to four generations in our workforce, it important to create this culture that everyone can embrace.

For me the following three are key to building a culture that you can build on:

1. Trust
2. Open Communication
3. Empowerment

Trust - you must be able to trust your employees and for that matter your volunteers too.  It's a working partnership that needs to be constantly worked on and improved.

Open Communication - every employee and volunteer deserves to know what is expected of them in their respective roles as it relates to the organization.  Secrecy and side bar conversations is a huge negative.  If you don't communicate, in my opinion, you'll never create a culture that your staff and volunteers can get behind.

Empowerment - don't you like to be empowered to make a difference? News flash, your staff and volunteers feel the same way.  Set the vision, give them the resources and let them loose.

The results might just surprise you!

For a great resource on culture in the association space go HERE.